Kammenos appears to warm up to…drachma prospect

Former anti-bailout firebrand: ‘I wouldn’t say no to the drachma if there was a path with a prospect’

The most recent convert to a possible return to the drachma is none other than the leader of the small rightist-populist Independent Greeks’ (AN.EL) party, Panos Kammenos.

In statements to a local radio station on Monday, the former defence minister, former ND minister and former anti-bailout polemicist stated:

“I wouldn’t say no to the drachma if there was a path with a prospect, I can clearly say that.”

In the same interview Kammenos also took aim at former FinMin Yanis Varoufakis , saying he “didn’t know if Varoufakis was an accomplice in creditors’ designs…history will tell.”

The often impetuous political leader, who voted for the third memorandum this past month, also claimed that creditors’ aim was to kick crisis-ridden Greece out of Europe in order to avoid three million refugees.

He also tried to gloss over his and his party’s MPs eventual vote in favor of the third memorandum, given that the AN.EL party mostly relied on its right-of-center opposition to previous bailout terms.

Here’s how he phrased his “change of heart”:

“We didn’t fool the people, we had to choose between the country’s destruction or a national path. We preferred to risk our parties, our reputation but not to kill off Greece,” he said.

Asked if he would again include a controversial party MP in his party’s ballots, given that the latter has been linked with a Cyprus-based off-shore company, he said approval depends on the latter clearing up the affair.

Sit-com actor and comedic performer Pavlos Haikalis admitted to establishing  the off-shore to protect his intellectual rights on Cyprus, but said he wasn’t the manager of the firm and that it was inactive since 2011.

Haikalis, who managed to serve for a month or so as a deputy labor minister in Alexis Tsipras’ seventh and last month in office, declined to state the sums of money managed by the off-shore firm.